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Tuesday, 1 December 2015

Dressed app - outfit planning at its most fun

I genuinely don't know how many of you will have already come across this app, but I love it so much I had to share it. Basically, it's your virtual wardrobe on your phone - and for someone like me whose clothes are all crammed away out of sight and I'm losing track of them all (first world problems), it's been amazing for reminding me what I have when planning outfits for this very blog. It's basically the Clueless computer made real...

It's the brainchild of Kara who also writes this style blog (I love that a fellow blogger was behind it!) and the idea is you upload images of your clothes, preferably from online shop photos that have been properly shot with the right lighting etc and then you tag them in various ways e.g. by type, season, colour, brand, occasion. Therefore, as you go you build up a digital wardrobe that can be sorted in whichever way you choose to help you find things that work together.

So you have these main categories on the left (and you tag the pieces you add as above) and on the right is what it looks like when you're putting your outfits together. Guys, it's SO much fun!

Of course, you've already guessed what the drawback of this app is haven't you? Yep, how long it takes to add your clothes to it. And how frustrating that can be if there isn't a good image online of it, which happens a lot when brands - naming no names, ASOS - only show clothes on models, who inevitably drape their hair and hands all over everything and never ever face the camera head-on (damn you why must you always turn to the side!!), which just looks crap in the app. But most fashion brands do provide helpful images - or you might get lucky and can pinch other bloggers', or your own if you blog (this has worked for me - the purple bardot top and the tartan skirt below are better examples of this) - as it's a personal app no one's going to know or care where you get the images from (although I can't say for sure that's not breaking copyright laws in the UK so don't quote me!). The main thing is making sure they're well lit and that they're straight onto the camera and 'worn', or they won't look right on your mannequin. I'm going to guess this works particularly well for me as I wear so much modern and repro clothing, and vintage wardrobes might be more time-consuming to add, saying all this...

Anyway, the image editor is great and is sophisticated enough to remove a lot of white backgrounds completely automatically, or it has the option to use a manual 'eraser' so you can do it yourself if that doesn't work. It feeds the perfectionist in me...

So, once you've started adding things, you end up with your little wardrobe. And you can sort it - you can see I've sorted by type on the left there, but you can do colour and so on and on. The categorisation abilities are awesome.

I'm nowhere near even a fraction of my wardrobe being in the app (although all of my bags are in - YES! Thank you, comparatively tiny bag collection) - but I am making a point of adding every new piece now. Otherwise, I'm adding older things as I think of them, or want to use them in an outfit idea. This app has been a humungous help in planning the outfits I wear on this blog - and I can imagine for holiday wardrobes it's going to be incredible. I am that person trying to meticulously plan what I'll wear for a week away - partly because I'm taking photos of everything every 5 seconds for this blog! - and it takes a lot of the pain out of that...

And this is what outfits look like when you've 'built' them. Both of which I've now featured on this blog - here's the one on the left, and the one on the right. The right I tweaked slightly in reality, because that is one thing that isn't as great - sometimes things look amazing in the app and don't quite work in real life because of differences in how things hang and slight colour discrepancies. I don't see how it could have accounted for that though! And in above right's case, it was only the top I switched out, as it was a bit more 'cream' in real life than I wanted.

So there you go, my favourite new toy that is keeping me nice and occupied on my commutes at the moment. What do you think? Do you use this app, or would you? For a couple of £, it really does feel like a bargain to me and could even be my all-time favourite app! Needless to say, every single one of my girlfriends I show this to in real life gets incredibly over-excited about it... I should also point out that I purchased this app and this review is entirely un-sponsored, I just really love it!

EDIT: I forgot to include the link to the app and have found it's for iPhones only - apologies Android users...

Oh my giddy gosh, this is something I could spend hours on - and I can't work out if I would GAIN hours of time by not standing in front of my physical wardrobe, or if I would LOSE loads of time just playing with it?! It's incredibly exciting, it's like an electronic paper doll but for your own clothes. I think that I probably do have wayyyy too much vintage and older charity shop styles that would be a pain to get images of, but for recent buys I could see it being very helpful. How adorable are those two finished outfits at the bottom? Even the hair is a little bit like yours, do you get to choose that too??

Thank you so much for sharing this, I'm terribly backwards with apps and things, so I love hearing about little technology things xxx

It's slightly in favour of clawing time back for me - I spend less time taking everything I own out of my wardrobe and throwing discarded clothes on the floor now! As I say above, I do cheat with 'similar' things if I can't find my exact piece of clothing on the web! You do get a choice of hair, but they all have the side fringe, just in different lengths and colours. You're not the first person to say the model looks like me though!!

Hi lovelies - firstly, thank you so much to CiCi Marie for reviewing our app! I wanted to comment to say how unbelievably honored we are to be featured and also to let you all know that I'm on hand to answer any questions you might have about the app. :) I have a few tips for starting the process of importing (which can be tedious). As someone with a huge vintage wardrobe, here's what I found to be helpful:

(1) As stated above, the best place to start is online! In addition to Google searches, I went to my order history for my favorite shops (like Modcloth, Anthropologie, Unique Vintage) and immediately downloaded about 30% of my wardrobe. (I am SO with you on the ASOS thing by the way, it's maddening!)(2) For my vintage, I do a lot of shopping on Etsy. Much like other online retailers, I had a full order history, where a lot of the sellers took amazing well-lit photos on a dress form that I could instantly download and import.(3) Finally, the one feature you may not know of in the app are the templates. In each clothing item category, when you hit the "+" to add, there's the option to take a photo, import a photo, or add from a template. We've added a bunch of standard silhouettes, which you can customize by color, stripes, polka dots etc. My favorite feature, is you can also use the camera to overlay a print onto your template - this is HUGELY helpful for a lot of my vintage, which has a quirky print (as an aside, I also use this feature in sewing to test print placement). I find the templates save a lot of time instead of taking a ton of photos.

For me, I found the initial import stage worked best in batches - i.e., I'd find about 10 or so items or take several photos, and then would import them in the evening (with wine). It does take time, but it was so worth it to see my wardrobe come to life. I will say that our tech team is hard at work to simplify the importing process - so I'll keep you all posted!

I hope you ask me any questions you might have - feel free to email me anytime. You can also read more about the app on my blog (www.thedressedaesthetic.com), where I link to the app's website and to the Apple Store where the app can be downloaded.

Thanks again - it makes me SO happy to see customers loving something we worked so hard to bring to life!

Thank you for taking the time to comment and answer some of the queries, Kara! I didn't know you could use the template feature to overlay a pattern via the camera - that's awesome! I've certainly been using them for other simpler things e.g. tights.

I agree that importing in batches is a good idea - I do it on my commute. This morning I added another five things, for example :)

Ah, I've had a comment but it came through to my emails and has mysteriously disappeared off this page. I've had a few things like that happen recently, so here it is:

Hi CiCi, so good to read this review about Dressedapp.com. I've been using this app for quite some time now and have to say that I LOVE it. Anything that is truly worth it, takes some time. I travel a lot and use this app to plan my outfits weeks ahead of time. As a result I've never forgot an accessory or a piece of one of my outfits. I couldn't imagine not having this app. Thanks the Dressedapp staff and founders. Oh & Kara, you have a wardrobe that bestills my heart. Thanks CiCi. Happy Holidays. - AyshLeigh

Hi CiCi, so good to read this review about Dressedapp.com. I've been using this app for quite some time now and have to say that I LOVE it. Anything that is truly worth it, takes some time. I travel a lot and use this app to plan my outfits weeks ahead of time. As a result I've never forgot an accessory or a piece of one of my outfits. I couldn't imagine not having this app. Thanks the Dressedapp staff and founders. Oh & Kara, you have a wardrobe that bestills my heart. Thanks CiCi. Happy Holidays.

This seems like a great app! Unfortunately, I have neither the phone nor the patience to do all the uploading and curating and whatnot. This would be a huge improvement on my enormous list o'outfits that I keep adding on to, though.

What a cool idea and lovely post about this delightful app. I could see this being addictively fun to use - not to mention a great way to pass time while waiting, on public transit, etc. You could easily map out your outfits (assuming one had the bulk of their wardrobe in the system) for days ahead of time, which totally appeals to the perpetual planner/organizer in me.

Yes to all you say, Jessica :) Getting the bulk of your wardrobe in is definitely the challenge. I'm kind of working in sections - I've done all my bags and all my full skirts now and making great progress on accessories. I'm not sure I'll ever have all my tops in there though! x